Mad Forest

Oct 10—Oct 18 2014

Arts Bank Theater

Written by Caryl Churchill
Directed by Rosey Hay

This multidimensional exploration of Communist Romania several months before the Revolution establishes an atmosphere permeated by the Securitate. Forbidden love, actual historic events and the fatal cost of war are exposed in this illustrious drama.

The first act is set in Communist Romania, several months before the Revolution, and establishes an atmosphere permeated by the Securitate (Romania's secret police), in which one young woman's engagement to an American draws scrutiny on all of her family and associates. The second act – using the same actors to portray an entirely different set of characters – recounts the events of December 21–December 25, 1989 in Bucharest. The third act, set largely in a hospital where one of the characters from Act I is recovering from injuries sustained during the fighting, engages in matters such as Romanian perceptions of the Hungarian minority and many conflicting views as the extent to which the events of December 1989 and the rise of Ion Iliescu constituted a coup d'état versus a revolution.